GoDocs Review: Google Docs Tool for iPad and iPhone

Google offers its own Google Drive app. It shows users their files and lets them edit Google Drive documents within the app. It also lets users share the file and view a few details about the file. But using Google Docs on an iPhone or iPad can still be awkward. That’s why people make native apps like GoDocs, though.

GoDocs works well; it lets users access their Google Drive docs, formerly known as Google Docs. The native app shows the user a little more information than Google’s offerings, and has more interaction options, but actually editing a document with the app still falls short.

First off, GoDocs shows a little more information about the file and has more options for interacting with it:

Notice the menu above, which the user opens by either pressing and holding the file name or by tapping the iOS Share button in the upper right corner when a document shows in the viewer? We see a number of options not available in the iOS Google Drive app, like revision details about the document. You can see those by tapping the bar labelled “more” just above the Open in Other App button.

GoDocs lets the user read their files and open them in other apps, but creating and editing them doesn’t work as well as the Google Drive app. That’s the biggest downfall of GoDocs and it is a big one.

GoDocs Open In Menu

In Google Drive’s app, open the file and tap the Edit button. On GoDocs, you tap and hold the file and then tap Edit. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to work with test files created within the app or files online. It only opened a blank interface. Reading the app store reviews shows this problem persists for many.

To just view Google Drive documents, the app works great. But as a document editor it’s not as good as Google’s free Google Drive tool. At $4.99 we can’t recommend GoDocs. See our roundup of MS Office style apps, many of which offer Google Drive integration and give far superior editing features than either GoDocs or Google’s own app.